This White House isn't prone to backing down when the press throws a temper tantrum, and that's certainly the case after CNN, MS NOW, and Politico jointly sued the Trump administration Monday over President Trump's Friday decision to revoke their access to the White House.

In fact, it's now doubling down on the president's decision and pointing to the long history of previous administrations restricting press access when it suited them. Curiously, the CNN/MS NOW/Politico types didn't have a problem with it when it was done to other outlets – and when it was Democrat administrations doing it.

The White House issued an absolutely blistering response to the lawsuit Monday afternoon – titled "White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right" – and systematically laid out how both the Obama and Biden administrations had restricted, punished, or shut out certain reporters and outlets from having White House access.

"The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool," the statement declared. "Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never “every outlet gets in.” It was always “our side stays in.”"

And then a mountain of receipts was dropped.

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The White House reached all the way back to the Obama years, citing that administration's feud with Fox News, including its efforts to exclude the network from pool interviews, the Justice Department's targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen during a leak investigation, and its seizure of Associated Press phone records.

It also pointed to the Boston Herald's claim that it was excluded from a 2011 Obama press pool after publishing a Mitt Romney op-ed.

Oh, that.

Then there were the Biden years, with the White House noting that more than 440 reporters lost their permanent press passes under new credentialing rules handed down in 2023. There was also the exclusion of New York Post reporter Steven Nelson from a presidential event after he repeatedly questioned Biden about his family's foreign business dealings.

All of which proves the Trump White House's main point: this isn't about the First Amendment or fairness or freedom of the press – it's only because, this time around, it's their side getting access revoked that they're all in a snit.

As RedState's Nick Arama reported earlier Monday, CNN, MS NOW, and Politico filed a lawsuit after their "journalists" had their White House credentials revoked, with the outlets claiming the administration was violating their First Amendment rights because it objected to their reporting.

"This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes," they said in a joint statement.

It's clear that, as far as the Trump White House is concerned, the media's sudden insistence that access to the White House is their sacred right rings decidedly hollow given the history of previous White Houses revoking access.

And there's absolutely no doubt where Trump stands on this: "No President is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds. Access has always been a privilege — and President Trump is applying that rule."